The superior ease-of-use characteristics of electronic spreadsheets are well-known, especially in the field of office automation. The use of electronic spreadsheets in other fields is also known, although in the past, certain computer applications have been unable to take full advantage of the spreadsheet metaphor. One reason for this is that a large class of computer applications require algorithms that operate over time-based intervals of a continuous data stream, and conventional spreadsheets provide no intrinsic support for continuous data processing over more than one processing interval.
An electronic spreadsheet is, essentially, a means of graphically representing a set of expressions as a grid of cells. Each cell in the spreadsheet grid represents a parenthetical expression that can, in turn, be a function of some number of other cellular expressions.
A spreadsheet program updates its grid, as necessary, to maintain the programmed relationship between cellular expressions. Electronic spreadsheets are intended to provide immediate response to any modifications of the programmed expressions. However, in conventional electronic spreadsheets, cellular expressions have no means for accessing previously evaluated results from prior processing intervals. Absent this capability, it is impossible for a conventional spreadsheet to process a continuous data stream of incoming data on a time-based interval of a duration greater than one processing interval.
Although methods for implementing algorithms that operate on continuous data streams are well-known in computer programming, no methods are known for implementing this class of processing within the context of an electronic spreadsheet.